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DonateNow and EmailNow Help the Community Food Bank of Eastern Oklahoma Conquer Hunger

Community Food Bank of Eastern Oklahoma

Community Food Bank of Eastern Oklahoma

The Community Food Bank of Eastern Oklahoma connects with donors and raises funds through monthly EmailNow e-newsletters that include the DonateNow button. CFBEO also encourages constituents who receive paper mailers to visit the nonprofit’s website and make donations there. Since subscribing to DonateNow, CFBEO has seen donations jump more than 100% in one of its major campaigns and has enjoyed yearly increases in repeat online giving.

We like that DonateNow gives donors the option of providing 100% of their gift, and we’ve found that lots of our donors will pay the processing fee just to help feed the hungry in eastern Oklahoma. —Amy Cannon, Assistant Director of Development, Community Food Bank of Eastern Oklahoma

The Community Food Bank of Eastern Oklahoma[1] (CFBEO) is the largest private hunger-relief organization in the region. Their mission is to feed the hungry of Eastern Oklahoma and engage local communities in the fight to end hunger.

Amy Cannon, assistant director of development at CFBEO, says they incorporate DonateNow and EmailNow into their campaigns because they’re easy to use and offer the latest online capabilities. They send out a monthly email that includes a DonateNow button, although many supporters prefer to visit the organization’s website to donate. Cannon likes the DonateNow feature allowing people the option to provide 100% of their gift. She notes that a lot of donors are willing to pay the transaction processing fee so that 100% of their donations go to help those in need.

One measurable way DonateNow has improved online giving can be seen in CFBEO’s George Kaiser Family Foundation fundraiser. For the first year of this campaign, a DonateNow page was specifically created to help promote the matching gift fundraiser, which resulted in $318,000 in donations. The following year, with great promotion and the use of DonateNow and EmailNow, this same fundraiser netted $650,000—more than double!

Cannon says they reach out to donors after their first donation and engage them via thank you letters, cards, emails and phone calls up to seven times before the next gift. Online donations have increased every year that CFBEO has included DonateNow in these engagements. CFBEO has also improved online giving by making changes to group’s DonateNow pages based on feedback from their donors. Having a donation page that they can easily edit and update has been an advantage.

Fundraising Takeaways

Place obvious DonateNow links and buttons on all of your communications, but don’t be surprised if people still visit your organization’s website to make donations—so be sure to include links there, too.

Make your DonateNow page user friendly by listening to all related donor issues and making changes as appropriate.